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I’ve changed the opening to my bad side. Yes, again, but now it has more action, more of a hook, as those in the know have advised…My hand reflected ghostly in the silver elevator panel. There was a kind of liquid sound, almost like metal rain, inside me, a fluid crinkling in my brain, chewing into my ears and down my neck. I didn’t know what was wrong, a sickness or terror. Crystal was convinced she had brain cancer. She was always saying things like that, determined to be the loneliest, the purest of all. I rotated my heel back on the stiletto, my foot angling sharply up, and thrust through out of the elevator, only half open, my key already out, and pushed hard on the apartment door.“Last warning.” Derek stood between the back of the couch and the window, a broom held up. Apollo crouched, his sleek serval shoulders tensed, his rear legs coiled like springs.

Apollo kept his body tight, his eyes on Derek, watching him, a rodent in the savanna.

“This fucking exotic monster of yours attacked me!”

“You need to leave.”

He came around the couch, stepping drunkenly; that’s when I realized he had a gun. “What’s with the dress? You fucking a prince?”

I stepped back.

“You turned your sister against me!”

“You need to go home.”Apollo sprang, stretching fully across Derek’s chest and dug his claws into his shoulder. There was a bang, like a window slamming shut. Apollo fell suddenly, in the middle of the rug, his bottom leg stuck out. I crouched over him and saw the hole in his shoulder, a tiny nothing and then a watery line of red trailing into the rug.

“I told her to call me.” Derek stood just above. “You know that.”

Everything in me was twisted tight, my heart erratic, a mess of veins squenched together, vibrating madly, almost still. I grunted as I swung around and threw myself fully into his legs, bringing both of us down, my arm under him. I swung at his face, missed, hitting the floor, surprised that none of it hurt, that I was that strong and had the gun, got up and kicked him in the neck.

“She’s gone, Dee.”The gun snapped up and hovered, a living thing, and there was a vibrating sound, the light hard and burning, and then Derek was looking at his blood coming out.

“Stay there. Just stay there.”

He slumped back, his hand drunkenly clawing the air.

I tried to lift Apollo, but my arm wouldn’t work, and could only pull him around, his long legs almost lifeless. I drew the clothes off the dresser into a bag, a pile of shirts and underwear from a drawer, all of it onto his cage, like I had been waiting for this, and dragged everything behind me onto the elevator.

Part two of another potential Apollofilm: Dee stays at her sister Crystal’s apartment where Crystal’s boyfriend, Derek, is over for dinner. DEE goes into the bedroom after APOLLO.

CRYSTAL: Don’t let him back out! Don’t.

DEE: We’ll go for a walk in a minute.

CRYSTAL (Staring out the window): What makes fire fighters so full of shit? DEREK: The witching hour is upon us.

CRYSTAL: I couldn’t hear you. Too much cackling.

DERK: (Turning on the television): Have another glass. CRYSTAL: Like I need your permission.

DEREK: What about not getting totally fucked up?

DEE: (To CRYSTAL): Walk Apollo with me.

CRYSTAL: I can get as fucked up as I want, baby, because I know you and your friends are here to make the save.

DEE: (Standing): Come on. Let’s go.CRYSTAL: (Refilling her glass, looking into it and then drinking everything): Acting like you’re at the center of the universe when you’re just a fat old woman watching it on TV.

Another potential Apollofilm: Dee stays at her sister Crystal’s apartment where Crystal’s boyfriend, Derek, is over for dinner.

DEREK: Want to hear my cop down story? (Puts down his hamburger): I mean, just seeing a cop on his little bicycle is enough, isn’t it? Anyway, he’s going along, Dum de dum, right? And he sees something up ahead, and this car door opens up right in front of him. Bam! Cop goes flying, head over heels, and lands right on his ass. (Laughs, food coming out of his mouth) He’s just lying there and the guy in the car is looking down at him like he’s committed assault, right? He’s thinking he’s going to jail, and the cop pulls the radio off his shoulder and yells, ‘Officer down! Officer down!’ The driver jumps back like this, right? He looks like he’s going to take off now. Holy shit, I couldn’t stop laughing. Those guys are fucking babies.

CRYSTAL: You’re such a pig. (She suddenly gets up, goes through the piles of papers and garbage on the table and television, and opens a fresh packet of cigarettes.) DEREK He had his little ticket book out before he was even off the ground. That’s fucking New York.

CRYSTAL: New Yorkers are so full of shit. If you tell them to beat somebody, they’d do it. Everyone will. They’ll say they do it because they’re afraid. That’s bullshit. They do it because they have the permission. They want to. They want to do it before it’s done to them.

DEREK: Be good, babe. (He picks at a scar on the back of his bicep and shrugs at DEE when he catches her looking) It’s just an old burn.

Apollo has just been posted onto vimeo. The 5-minute film follows Dee as she comes home to her New York apartment to find a drunk fire fighter with a knife in his hand and her dog, Apollo, bleeding on the floor. It is begins with an evocative opening shot, followed by a hypnotic sequence in a car. It is a compelling work – acting and technically solid. It’s well worth your time!

I have written the first draft of a second Bad Side script. It follows Dee on the train with Apollo north out of the city.

The train inches past the soot and cables, the decrepit buildings, twisted rust jutting out, bottles and shards, an animal skull on an electrical box, and then is on a bridge. DEE wraps her hand, stiff and fat, in a sweatshirt. The conductor approaches, his hat pushed forward; he is older with a thin face and empty eyes.

CONDUCTOR: Ticket?DEE: I gave it to the other guy, the one before you.

CONDUCTOR (Looking at Dee’s cleavage): Where’s your receipt?DEE: I must have thrown it away.

CONDUCTOR: Which is it? You threw it away or you gave it to the other guy?

DEE pulls her dress out from her legs. There is a stain on the waist. It looks like blood.

DEE: I didn’t think I needed it.

CONDUCTOR: Where are you going?

DEE: Providence.

CONDUCTOR: Got on at Penn? (He looks down the aisle and then back at DEE) I have to write you up,

Writing is a business. Nothing more than that. It doesn’t matter how great the story is nor what a clever little wordsmith I might be. If I can’t pitch the idea, that’s it. It all boils down to the hook, the copy read by that deep-voiced movie trailer guy: Deirdre Sinclair must come to terms with a moment she cannot remember, a past she cannot forget. I think I did all right in the end, getting the interest of three out of four editors, each of them noting my spin: It’s The Happy Hooker meets Born Free in the style of Cormac McCarthy.I gave them a minute to think about that and then went back into it: “She was orphaned as a baby. She’s into performance sex. And she has an exotic cat! A serval! Do you know what that is?” As my coach pronounced, “Everyone loves a cat. Does he live? Whatever you do, don’t kill the cat!” I couldn’t. I love that crazy cat.

I watched my face fade in and out against the shadows and buildings, my eyes and mouth, my neck and chest, my dress suddenly there and then gone into the scaffolding and lights, a police car, its blue and white lights swimming back and forth. The cab turned, and my face was in the window again, the flat stone of Battery Tunnel and then the gravel and bent-over plastic fences and the wide emptiness and the front of my building.

“$9.40.”

I gave him $8. “It’s a $7 fare.”

He turned sharply, his collar jutting out at the side. “I’m not a beggar.”

“I’m not a tourist.”

“The fare is $9.40.”

I was only half out, my foot just on the wet asphalt, when the car lurched ahead, and I had to pirouette, kick down and catch myself to a stop, as the wheels spun, jittering, and jolted away, the door still half open.

“Miss Sinclair?” Sully had his hand out for me; he wore his suit perfectly, tie tight, shirt sleeves just out from his jacket,

“Thank you.”

We watched the cab’s tail lights flash on and off, menacingly, and then turn to the park.

The elevator doors closed. The hall was empty. My key went badly into the lock. Apollo was lying in the middle of the rug, curled away, his bottom leg sticking out, his paw over his head. I couldn’t understand why he was like that.

“Hey there.”

I stepped back and banged my elbow into the wall. “Jesus fuck, Derek.”

He was slouched at the edge of the couch, his uniform half off. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing here?”

He doubled up, coughing horribly.

I crouched over Apollo; there was a hole in his shoulder, a tiny nothing and then a watery line of red trailing into the rug.

“Dee.” Derek was suddenly too close, almost at my shoulder. He had something in his hand, dark and heavy, like a phone, but it wasn’t that. It was a gun. I swung out wildly, twisting away, falling forward, both of us full onto my side and arm, and kicked at him, punching the floor, the gun loose and in my hand. I pushed myself up, everything in me twisted tight, my heart erratic, a mess of veins squenched together, making me think that I was more real than I was, and I raised the gun at him. He wouldn’t stop coughing.

“Your fucking cat—“

It snapped up and hovered, a living thing, and there was a vibrating sound, the light hard and burning. He slumped back like he was pretending to be mad and then he was struggling to get up again.

I was going to shoot again. “Just stay.” He listened to that.

Apollo whipped his tail at me. I tried to lift him, but he swiped back and hissed, and I was just dragging him awfully. I got his cage and pulled him into that and knocked everything off my dresser into a bag, like I had been waiting for this and pulled him after me onto the elevator, getting my phone and was going to call the police but just held it stupidly, thinking they would come after me and decided I had to get away.

“Miss Sinclair?” Sully ran to us. “Are you all right?”

“Apollo’s hurt.”

“Apollo? Let me.” He took the cage out the glass doors. “What’s happened to your hand?”